The Romantic Comedy Fallacy

One more word about LEAP YEAR. I couldn’t get into this in the review, for a bunch of reasons, so I’ll say it here. Part of the reason the movie doesn’t work is that it brings together two people who don’t belong together. WE know they won’t stay together. WE know they’re bound to get a divorce, so why don’t THEY know?

The Romantic Comedy Fallacy is the notion that says, “Because I’m not right for Person A, I must be right for Person B.” Romantic comedies reduce all the choices in the world to two people. BAD romantic comedies allow us to notice this — and rebel against the obvious untruth of this reasoning. Just because, for example, Amy Adams shouldn’t be with the cardiologist does not mean she should uproot her life, leave Manhattan, give up her career and go to live in a rural village — in a foreign country — with a guy who treats her like she’s an idiot and isn’t very nice to her.

Remember MANHATTAN? That ending has a smart use of the Romantic Fallacy. Woody Allen breaks up with Mariel Hemingway to go with Diane Keaton; then that doesn’t work out, and he concludes that he’s in love with Mariel Hemingway. The CHARACTER is in the grip of the Romantic Fallacy as the movie concludes, but is Woody Allen, as the author and director of the movie? He’s not so sure. So the movie ends on a nice not of ambiguity.